There really is only really one reason that tourists head for Nasca and that is to visit to see the Nasca Lines. These are mysterious lines that have been cleared on the floor of the desert over 2000 years ago and can still be clearly seen today.

We decided that we would take the slightly more expensive option of flying over the lines in a small airplane. The flight lasted approximately 30 minutes taking in the 14 more obvious of the over 300 different patterns discovered to date.

There are differtent theories of what these lines mean and what they were used for. Two of the more famous theories are that they either represent the star constellations and were used as an ancient calender to map the seasons. Or that they are like a giant map showing the way to the numerous aquaducts that are in the area. In both cases these match up with what they are depicting but in only 30% of the cases so this can be only a coincidence. There is also a theory that the lines were used as a ritual dance pattern much the same as some similar lines found in a smaller scale in Southern California.

So knowing all this we were ready to get the flight to see these lines for ourselves. We crammed into the tiny plane and it took off into the skies. As this flight is over the desert with some hills it was a little rough to say the least. Katie went a bit quiet and green gilled at this point as the plane started to circle around tipping its wings so we could see the lines from either side window of the plane. We were amazed how clear the shapes were from our vantage point. The most famous of these lines is simply called "The Hands". These are two arms with hands on the end waving back up from the desert. Amongst the others a Parrott, Whale, Spider and Condor can be seen.

The lines are made by clearing the rocks left scattered over the desert floor and leaving the bare dessert behind to show the shapes. Although these were created by the Nazca people over 2000 years ago these still remain as the site was left undiscovered until 1920´s and the Nazca people had died out over 1000 years beforehand.

During the flight I was busilly snapping more photos than a Japanese Tourist but since seeing them they need some expert photo-shopping to pick out most of the images so sadly not all of them will be appearing on the blog but we will do our best to show you the best ones.

After our flight and once Katie had got her land legs back we had a few hours to kill before heading on to Cusco so we went to see the small gold and ceramic workshops that take place in peoples back gardens. If you have the chance of going make sure that you visit a man called Luis in his gold smelting garden. He had to be the most insane person I have ever had the pleasue of meeting. He insisted on singing all his questions and answers to us in pigeon English and alarmingly juggling with a leaky bottle of mercury! Who ever said that mercury doesn't effect the brain needs to see this man.